It is not only American West

Torstai 1.7.2021 klo 18.58 - Mikko Nikinmaa

Cities in the Northwest of USA and Canada have had deadly heat. Temperatures above 40 C (more than 104 F) have been recorded in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. It would be very hot even for San Diego, but those, up to now, cities with mild summer temperatures with heat waves being temperatures between 25 and 30 C really suffer. It would not be incredibly bad if one could say that this is an once in a thousand years occurrence in only one place in the Earth. However, one has had stationary heat wave reaching above the Arctic Circle in Siberia, with air temperature above 30 C and land surface temperature between 35-50 C.

In a way those temperatures are even worse than the heat wave in the American Northwest. Although many people do not live there, and thus the acute death toll caused by the high temperature remains small, it is permafrost area. As the permanently frozen soil (permafrost) melts, craters are formed, from which huge methane leaks enter the atmosphere. The gas is much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. 

Despite these huge changes, which occur in several places, and despite the years from 2000 to 2021 making up most of the years with globally highest temperatures, there still are people who deny climate change. Their attitude can be summarized by the following sentence: "Ok, world, which becomes uninhabitable because of heat, is the price we have to pay for having a growing economy."

The heat brings with it a couple of serious other problems. The agricultural areas in, e.g., California have serious lack of water, whereby crop yields start to decrease markedly. Further, wildfires probably increase in severity. Already in last year the Siberian forest fires caused more carbon dioxide release than was the whole decrease of carbon dioxide production in Europe.

The continuation of climate change is irritating, because we would have the means to stop it, and it could be done without serious harm to even us, the rich of the North. However, it would require changes in attitude, and that appears to be impossible.